thoughts (and links) of a retired "social scientist" as he tries to make sense of the world.....

what you get here

This is not a blog which expresses instant opinions on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers as jumping-off points for some reflections about our social endeavours.

So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

Friday, March 18, 2011

money, fear, sonorous music and stupid efficiency

Am I the only person who keeps adding books to his Google library (on the 1,000 mark at the moment) – and rarely goes back to read them? I’m going to try to mention the additions here for a week or so – to see if that will encourage me to go back and at least flick the new arrivals.I have just added two recent books which show how what little democracy there was is being undermined by money and fear. The first is “Democracy Distorted; wealth, influence and democratic politics” by Jacob Rowbottom (2010) which focuses on Britain. The second is “Freedom for Sale; Why the world is trading democracy for security” by John Kaempfer (2009)

Serendipity is a strange thing. A very sombre and powerful string ensemble piece yesterday morning on “Muzical”, the classical programme which accompanies me here all day here in the mountain house, turned out to be Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen (for 23 string instruments) (von Karajan version)(Kempel version) composed in 1945 in the debris of Germany. We all know about Shostakovitch’s 1941 Leningrad symphony composed during the 900 day siege of that city but this is the first I knew of this great Strauss piece – one of his last. Shortly afterwards I was skimming the work of Ronald Dore – the great specialist on Japan – and, for some reason, decided to click the music link on my site which I rarely access. And there was a string Requiem of a similar harrowing power, composed in 1957 by a Japanese composer of whom I have never heard – Takemitsu. For some reason I thought that Shostakovitch's 8th string quartet was also from the Leningrad siege - but the internet put me right!

Finally – a great post on the Real Economics blog about efficiency

–“ I hate efficiency. I hate it with a passion. It always seems to drive people into making absurd and dangerous decisions. In a world where the future is unknowable, that is where uncertainty reins supreme, it is a very stupid strategy to attempt to be efficient. Dinosaurs were very efficient. Supremely so. They thus ruled the earth for a length of time that makes us look like tiny and insignificant amateurs. Their problem was that they became too efficient. They stopped thinking. They had no back up plan. They had no redundancy. So they could not withstand a shock in their environment. The unknown eventually popped up and rendered all that efficiency as monumentally inefficient. I realize that this is a gross simplification, but bear with me, it’s an analogy.“Or, for the more modern amongst us, think of the Maginot line. A perfect defense system designed to withstand all that could be thrown against it. But not too good if the enemy simply drives around it.Efficiency, it seems, is entirely contextual. What works well today and thus appears to be the height of elegant engineering, with efficiency fairly oozing from every corner, will collapse in an undignified heap tomorrow when the earth shifts, the environment or tastes change, or when new technologies simply make it all seem so quaint.So I hate efficiency because it feels and looks like a fool’s game.I say keep something in reserve. Because you never know.The problem is that other people adore efficiency.”

About Me

Can be contacted at bakuron2003@yahoo.co.uk
Political refugee from Thatcher's Britain (or rather Scotland) who has been on the move since 1991. First in central Europe - then from 1999 Central Asia and Caucasus. Working on EU projects - related to building capacity of local and central government. Home base is an old house in the Carpathian mountains and Sofia

about the blog

Writing in my field is done by academics - and gives little help to individuals who are struggling to survive in or change public bureaucracies. Or else it is propoganda drafted by consultants and officials trying to talk up their reforms. And most of it covers work at a national level - whereas most of the worthwhile effort is at a more local level. The restless search for the new dishonours the work we have done in the past. As Zeldin once said - "To have a new vision of the future it is first necessary to have new vision of the past".I therefore started this blog to try to make sense of the organisational endeavours I've been involved in; to see if there are any lessons which can be passed on; to restore a bit of institutional memory and social history - particularly in the endeavour of what used to be known as "social justice". My generation believed that political activity could improve things - that belief is now dead and that cynicism threatens civilisationI also read a lot and wanted to pass on the results of this to those who have neither the time or inclination -as well as my love of painting, particularly the realist 20th century schools of Bulgaria and Belgium.A final motive for the blog is more complicated - and has to do with life and family. Why are we here? What have we done with our life? What is important to us? Not just professional knowledge - but what used to be known, rather sexistically, as "wine, women and song" - for me now in the autumn of my life as wine, books and art....

quotes

“I will act as if what I do makes a difference”
William James 1890.

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas"
JM Keynes (1935)

"We've spent half a century arguing over management methods. If there are solutions to our confusions over government, they lie in democratic not management processes"
JR Saul (1992)

"There are four sorts of worthwhile learning - learning about · oneself
· learning about things
· learning how others see us
· learning how we see others"
E. Schumacher (author of "Small is Beautiful" (1973) and Guide for the Perplexed (1977))

"The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."
Bertrand Russell, 1950

Followers

der arme Dichter (Carl Spitzweg)

my alter ego

the other site

In 2008 I set up a website in the (vain) hope of developing a dialogue around issues of public administration reform - particularly in transition countries where I have been living and working for the past 26 years. The site is www.freewebs.com/publicadminreform and contains the major papers I have written over the years about my attempts to reform various public organisations in the various roles which I've had - politician; academic/trainer; consultant.